Fiber optics, sub-woofers, young people dressed all in black, and steady crowds at the bar and the dance floor alike. The house dancers - busty twin brunettes in red velvet corsets - writhe under spotlights in either corner, daring the rest to outdo them. And a pair of guest singers have the music covered - with a cover track, granted, but a popular one at the venue:

Another world, another time

In the age of wonder

Another world, another time

This land was green and good until the crystal cracked

This is not at all the place Lillian Byrne normally finds herself. Not he scene at all. But tonight, she's been dragged out by some of the few friends she has far away from her books, her studying, and her notes and papers to a building of blasting music, barely dressed women, and pulsating lights. This alone is enough to make her uncomfortable, even whens he does go out for a night of partying, it's nothing like this.

It probably doesn't help that her friends promptly abandoned her at the prospect of getting laid.

So, uncomfortable is a bit of an understatement, Lillian sticking out a bit like a sore thumb with her brown jacket and bright blue jeans, hovering a bit towards the back wall as she tries to decide if she should leave or go.

It must be a slow news day, Charla thinks, because she's here with a film crew covering… random techno? Well, the main point is supposed to be an interview with the DJ of this club. Who is apparently pretty popular recently. She's already done her introduction outside the club, so she's waiting around inside for the DJ to take a break so they can have the interview. And this kind of dance club isn't quite her style… as fashionable as some of the clientele seems to be.

Blame the 112th Congress. Or at least, that's what Alexandra is doing. What for? There's a lot of stuff a lot of folks would want to pin on them, but she has her own reasons. In her case, for being here, home of overpriced martinis and strange European electronica. "How the heck can they listen to this stuff all the time, over there?" she asks nobody in particular, thinking just a little too loudly out loud. Not quite late enough to have changed from work, but not quite early enough to still have her work stuff on her, Alex was able to stop by her place just long enough to drop stuff off and swing on by in time for local bandage.

Strangely it is hard to understand why Evette would be here and yet she is. There is a glance around the area with those bright eyes of hers before she types out more on the phone. The public relations girl moves towards the bar. A smile curves her lips while not reaching her eyes, "Just water, twist of orange, thanks."

Portia's not a busty brunette, nor is she wearing a corset, but she's well-dressed enough to be decently modest while still showing off curves, unlike most of the women in the club. And for once, she's not having to sneak in or do anything of the sort. She, along with Randall, are taking the opportunity as the guest singers. Good to get their names out there, especially since Portia is taking her music very seriously.

Once more they will replenish themselves

Cheat death again

The power of their source

The crystal

On the other side of the DJ booth, Randall is playing directly to the crowd at first; only as he finishes up the opening does he turn toward Portia and take a step closer. There's a hint of white to his outfit, but concealed by a stylized variation of a trenchcoat.

The people out on the dance floor are eating it up with a spoon, already anticipating the rising energy soon to come. The ones at the bar remain more detached; there's a guy hanging out and chatting with the woman serving the drinks, who looks more interested in the other guy who just reached the front of the line. Hmm.

tap tap tap. Lillian's feet tap on the floor as she looks around with a grimace, arms folded across her chest. The music is catchy, at least, even if nothing else is really capturing her attention for the moment. Sighing, she looks around, hoping to spy one of her friends. No such luck yet.

"Shouldn't you, oh, I don't know…be in DC? Helping out a particular mutual aquaintance, I would think? Or is that not needed anymore?" Apparently Alexandra has recognized at least one face in a club filled with identical faces blurred by whatever drugs it is they've no doubt been taking, booze, and the effects of the driving bass. That person is, of course, Evette, who seems as unenthused with the musical selection as Alex happens to be. "I swear, last time I was here, they played some actual dance music, radio stuff. It looks like we came in on trance night, though."

Evette pauses for a moment as she realizes that the words are directed to her. Eve turns to run her eyes up Alex's form and then back down it. She doesn't seem to place the woman. "I'm sorry?" The words are purred out with a sultry manner. "I was in DC yes and I'm soon to return to it."

Charla's mind manages to drift in the direction of the music. What are they singing about, some old fantasy book? She wouldn't imagine the kind of audience for that would be here, but… one thing she's learned about show business is, you'll never believe what can sell. Since it looks like this thing's going to take a while, she heads for the bar to get a drink, though as she's about to be recording, she's not about to get anything alcoholic. She takes a seat beside the others there as she orders something similar to what Evette has.

The young singer isn't taking the gig too seriously, though. She is, after all, there to have fun as well. Portia shoots Randall a smile as they sing, her eyes scanning the crowd as she continues the song, mostly checking out to see if she sees any familiar faces. Maybe they have fans.

The song goes on. And the volume goes up (but then doesn't it always?). And— the tempers at the bar are heating up. "And when exactly were you planning on telling me this?" the first guy says, glancing between the other two. Some of the others nearby are already backing off, or just taking the opportunity to wander out and throw themselves back into dancing instead.

"You mean…he hasn't told you? Oh, that's rich. That's really rich. Dawson. George Dawson. I'm assuming, of course, that you still work for him. The last time we met, you were running interference and playing gopher." Alex sets down the stemmed glass she was holding, and gives Evette a little bit of an incredulous look. "But really, you mean he's never told you why he travels back here sp frequently? I mean, beyond the business of representing his district. I mean, I guess I can see why…" she starts to say, but the raised voices farther down the bar draw her attention away.

That catches Lillian's attention well enough, the brunette looking over at the bar with a curoius look in her eyes as she glances over towards the bar. Uh oh, sounds like things are about to get serious, and… she's not really sure she wants to stick around with that, so pushes off the wall… before stopping, wrinkling her nose as she looks around.

Evette looks at Alexandra impassively. "Oh.." It is not the oh of OMG it's you. There is a shake of her head. "I don't ask about his flings here. DC is more the issue as it is closer to where people take pictures. I suppose you could be one of the ones he was changing meetings for." She offers a shrug of her shoulders and then there is a political smile. "Oui, I am Evette and work as his… public relations currently." She offers a lift of her shoulders. "My contract is up soon though, I think." This is what happens when you don't arrange your own employment but a firm does. "You are… I'm sorry, I don't have a name. You are right on the account that George has never mentioned you."

Charla looks toward the trouble spot. Whatever happens, she doesn't want to get involved… she doesn't want to get messed up before her interview. If it had already happened, she'd be perfectly willing to try to help break things up… then again, if the interview were done she'd probably be leaving.

Looking a bit deflated, Alexandra purses her lips together and hmmmmmmmms. "I would hope he's not just saying I'm a fling…otherwise, we're about to have some words on the telephone, and I don't care if he's in a meeting or not." Pause. "Well, okay, if he was in a meeting, I'd probably lay off, but only because I'm not one of those insanomatic clingy types. Not all the time at least." Another sip of the drink follows, though it turns into a quick downing of the entire tini, light on the apple, and heavy on the tini. "If he mentions Alexandra, well, now you know who he's talking about."

Lillian had the right idea, it seems, though it may prove to be too little too late. Someone else at the bar tries to butt in, trying to calm the argument down… aaaaaaand there's the first punch thrown, and as the intended target ducks out of the way, the would-be peacemaker winds up taking the hit for their trouble.

The inevitable brawl is fast and chaotic. Only the two men who started it look genuinely pissed at one another, everyone else is just trying - badly, through the haze of their last few rounds of drinks - to get out of the way before a stray elbow or chair can smack into them. The woman behind the bar has given right the hell up, ducking down out of sight.

Evette watches the other woman cooly. "He doesn't really discuss anyone unless I need to know. You aren't causing a scandal." There is a silent yet added to that. "So I don't need to know. I only need to worry about his campaign, not who's bed he is in." Her eyes move up and down the woman again. "Well met." Her eyes then shift to the raised voices. One brow lifts over her left eye. "This doesn't look too good."

Thankfully, the song's pretty much ending so Portia's slight distraction doesn't mess up the performance. She's caught sight of the fiasco at the bar and she's not planning on jumping in to stop anything, but it's at least got her a little worried. That kind of fight… it's got to be over a girl.

Prodded a bit by the concern of some of the camera crew members she's with, Charla backs away from the trouble, wanting to keep above the fray. Some of the crew members look like they're struggling to resist filming the fight, but that's not what they're here for and they know it. "I knew this assignment was a bad idea," she comments.

"W-what-" Lillian eyes widen as the man who had only come to help is jsut straight decked, shocked by the sudden outburst of violence. She takes a deep breath, lookinf between the exit door and the bar, unsure of what, exactly to do. But really, hear feet are carrying her to help the man who just got hit, having made the decision for her.

Randall winces at the sight of the scuffle, reaching for a microphone once again and muttering. "Ah, I think we'd better take a quick break here—" With that, he hops down and tries to get closer to where the trouble is, but the dancers - many of whom still haven't caught on - are kind of in the way.

The guy who got punched is back up on his feet, and screw making nicey nicey! He wants a piece of the other guy himself, now. Blows are traded - people bump into other people - a bottle of gin is knocked over - and the lit stub of someone's cigarette goes flying into the middle of it. Foomp.

Oh, the dancers are catching on now.

Oh, no, it figures that Randall would go investigate. Portia doesn't blame him, but she'd like to not see his nose broken. The young woman slowly makes her way off the stage, only to be caught up in the middle of worried dancers. Oh dear.

"Well, that's an understatement if I've ever heard one," Alexandra quips to Evette. If the first sound of a fist smacking a face isn't enough to get everyone's attention up at the bar, the foomp of igniting alcohol should do it. "Ohhhhhh shit," Alex cries out, before so aptly declaring, "fire!" First instinct is to grab an extinguisher - yes, you can blame years and years of lab safety being drilled into her head for that - but in the absence of one nearby, the alcohol-soaked counter dictates another course of action. "I'm going to regret this in the morning," she says sadly while pulling her sweater off to smother the thing.

Charla cautiously raises her hands. "Uh… If we could just settle things down a bit," she says, not really having much power to help in this situation but feeling like she has to try at least something. "We didn't come here expecting trouble, did we?" Again, she doesn't want to get involved in the fighting, but… it's not like she can just stand by and do nothing.

Evette hmms softly and looks towards the fighting and then the fire. She puts her hands behind her on the bar and hoists herself up. It's almost like she's not freaking out. The woman reaches for the hose of water that's kept on tap in those hose gun things. She attempts to douse the fire and those fighting. "ENOUGH!" Her voice rings once to that. However, let's face it, who's going to listen to a woman standing on a bar manipulating a spraying hose.

Part of the fire goes out as soon as it's splashed, but more keeps burning - the price of diverting some of it onto the brawlers, who if anything look more angry than before. Losing themselves in the heat of the action, one of them takes a swing at Evette, while another narrows his eyes at Charla. "Who asked you? Fuckin' stuck-up c—" The profanity trails off into an incoherent grunt as he hurls a beer bottle toward her.

Lillian's heart practically jumps out of her throat as her breath hitches because now there's fire and people getting punched// and there's just a bunch of crazy shit suddenly all going on at once. "Jesus Christ," she says quietly, backing a bit away.

Portia's lost in the crowd, some of which are panicking quite a bit, and the girl is jostled a bit as she tries to wade through the mess of bodies to get to somewhere that she can get a better look of everything that's going on.

Thankfully, one of the camera crew springs into action and takes one for the team, intercepting the bottle with a punch that causes it to shatter. Charla says nothing, having been too busy trying to guard herself to care. "I really, really don't want to be in a fight…" she says. "We should get out of here. We need to see about Dave's hand," one of the crew members comments. "If that's all right with you, Charla."

"Y-yeah… that's fine," she answers with a nod. "Let's go… we'll come back when this is over." The news crew tries to make its way out.

"What the hell…it's an alcohol fire! Smother it! Don't spread it!" With that, Alex is taking her sweater - thank you frozen New York City winters? - and slapping it down onto the counter, blanketing and smothering. Hopefully it's nothing designer! The swatting at the bar with the sweater, or maybe the punch aimed in her direction, that should do something to keep Evette from spreading the fire too much while Alex attempts to put it out.

Evette would comment. She would love to comment. However, there is a fist that collides with her face. It's a pretty face and a not so pretty fist. Evette goes down like an intern in a presidential suite.

There's something about sufficient drunkenness that not only incites people to violence, but also just general making fools of themselves in public. The bigger the crowd, the bigger the foolishness— and there could be a big ol' crowd watching these guys on the news. Long story short, the crew gets pelted a couple more times as they beat their hasty retreat.

Over at the bar, there's a foul stench in the air as the fire attempts to fight its way through Alex's top. And out on the dance floor, the chaos continues, if on a more dispersed scale. "Portia, wait up!" Randall calls out, doing his best to shoulder his way through without sparking a fresh round of brawling in the process.

The younger woman hears Randall calling, and Portia waits for him (amidst more jostling in the crowd), offering a hand waved high in his direction so he can find her. "Randall, over here…"